The complications involved with making a choice
Legislation provides for parties being able to choose which arbitration court of original jurisdiction will review a dispute between them – however, along with that the Russian Federation Arbitration Procedural Code explicitly bans exclusive jurisdiction. It would seem that choosing a court is exceptionally simple. If the parties have agreed to transfer their dispute into the jurisdiction of a particular court, and this agreement does not violate the principle of exclusive jurisdiction, then the plaintiff petitions the court that has been agreed upon. However, this obvious conclusion has not, in practice, been agreed to by the courts for a long time. Russian Federation Supreme Court Ruling No. 305-ES16-20255, dated May 25th, 2017, helped turn the tide.